The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.